


So This Is Freedom?  Funny, I Don't Remember Being Chained

by Whreflections



Series: 30 Winchester Brother snapshots [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Episode Tag, Episode: s05e02 Good God Y'all!, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-24
Updated: 2012-09-24
Packaged: 2017-11-14 22:44:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/520289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whreflections/pseuds/Whreflections
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's thoughts after stopping in a cheap motel alone his first night without Dean after they've split up at the end of 5.02.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So This Is Freedom?  Funny, I Don't Remember Being Chained

**Author's Note:**

> 13\. Crave

He really had thought he’d put up more of a fight.   
  
Sure, he’d gone into the conversation expecting it to hurt. There was no other way it could go, really. Still, this was  _Dean_ , and he’d thought that surely to God he couldn’t hate him that much over this.   
  
Except that maybe…maybe he did. Sam sighed, hunched down in the motel bed and let his head fall back against the headboard. He hadn’t even bothered to turn the lights on, hadn’t even bothered to take off his boots. This place really was a dump, and he was pretty sure if he listened hard enough he’d be able to hear the roaches scuttling on the floor. It was good. The level of semi decay just above a dump that they usually tried to find, that would have just reminded him of Dean.   
  
Of course, it didn’t matter. Everything reminded him of Dean.   
  
He squeezed his eyes shut, didn’t even try to stop the tears that had been threatening to fall since they’d sat down at that picnic table to talk.   
  
 _I think it’s best we go our separate ways._  
  
I think you’re right.  
  
It was ironic, really. In a disturbingly poetic way, he deserved it. He’d gone to Stanford and left Dean behind when Dean hadn’t wanted him to go. Hell, he’d kept the threat of him leaving hanging over Dean’s head for a long time even after he came back. In a way, he really did deserve it. A taste of what it felt like, being Dean. He’d said once that what he wanted was for Sam not to go, and even if he hadn’t told Dean, the words had meant something. But that was before Hell, before Ruby. Before he’d gone and screwed everything up.   
  
Maybe it had taken him losing Dad to realize how much he  _couldn’t_ lose Dean, but he had realized it. He’d realized it, and he’d assumed that after that, nothing could tear them apart. Of course then there was death and hell and a whole host of events that swirled now into one godawful mess that seemed to end with Dean deciding that after all this shit, maybe he didn’t need family after all.   
  
He’d realized that he wanted to stay with Dean, before, but he hadn’t realized just how much he downright  _needed_  him until Ruby had stood over that hole of light in the cathedral floor and told him just what he’d done. Saying the regret was ‘crushing’ didn’t really suffice. He’d needed his brother then, needed Dean to help him pick himself up and start going in the right direction again.   
  
Hell, this afternoon, that had practically been what he asked for. He had hoped, naively apparently, that Dean would tell him that whatever he needed to straighten out, they’d fix it.   
  
 _Don’t be stupid, Sammy, we stick together. We’ll just work this thing out, ok? Nobody’s goin’ anywhere._  
  
When he’d rehearsed the speech in his head, that’s what Dean had said.   
  
He choked back a sob, curled a little more against the headboard and pressed his sleeve against his mouth to keep the sound in. He couldn’t let himself  _really_  cry. He hadn’t, not since Dean had been dead, and if he did now, he’d break, and before he knew it he’d be crying for everything in between.   
  
He screwed his eyes shut even tighter, tried to think about blank walls or the Horsemen or nothing or even the fucking  _blood_ , just so long as he wasn’t thinking about Dean. It didn’t work, of course, and he felt his chest clench tight as he remembered, the memory forcing its way brutally to the front.   
  
He was 13, and they’d just finished one of the worst hunts he’d ever been on. A particularly sadistic ring of witches, controlling people and making them eat their family members to complete some sort of ancient ritual. They’d stopped them before they reached whatever their goal was, of course, but the horror of that one had struck him, stayed with him even when he tried to shake it.   
  
At the time he’d thought he was too old to be having nightmares, and  _definitely_ too old to need his brother around to deal with them, but some part of him, the part that wasn’t all awkward 13 year old stupidity…that part had been glad. He could remember waking up, shaking, cold sweat leaving him clammy and Dean’s soft voice in the dark. His hand been steady on his shoulder, and when he felt Sam shake he’d pulled him against his chest, held him there until he fell asleep and he’d been good enough to never breathe a damn word of it the next day or any time since.   
  
At the time, he’d known he was afraid before hand, known he wanted Dean there to stay with him until he wasn’t lost anymore but he’d never been able to ask. Back then, he hadn’t had to. At the time, he hadn’t known how lucky he was. He’d have given anything to have Dean there now, to have him put an arm around his shoulders and let him fall apart over all his fucking mistakes and in the morning they could both get up and put it behind them and get started stopping the Apocalypse.   
  
It was funny, really, how over the course of a life the things you wanted out of it changed. A couple years ago, he’d have said all he wanted out of life was a degree, a job, and a house. Dean, he’d just wanted Sam. Fastforward to now and God only knew what Dean wanted but Sam…  
  
He just wanted Dean. He wanted him there, every stupid thing about him, every song played too loud and every stupid attempt to get Sam laid and the way he cleaned his guns like a nervous tick and his sometimes infuriating overprotectiveness. That, most of all.   
  
For years, he’d wanted to break free, stop being ‘Sammy’, the sheltered little brother. He’d never realized just how true it was that you had to be fucking careful what you wished for.   
  
For the first time, he was really and truly on his own. 


End file.
